{"id":42955,"date":"2021-12-29T19:31:08","date_gmt":"2021-12-30T02:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/griswold-asks-judge-to-dismiss-baseless-gop-election-denier-lawsuit\/"},"modified":"2021-12-30T02:31:08","modified_gmt":"2021-12-30T02:31:08","slug":"griswold-asks-judge-to-dismiss-baseless-gop-election-denier-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/griswold-asks-judge-to-dismiss-baseless-gop-election-denier-lawsuit\/","title":{"rendered":"Griswold asks judge to dismiss \u2018baseless\u2019 GOP election-denier lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Colorado
Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold speaks during a news conference about the the state\u2019s efforts to protect the process of casting a vote on Oct. 15, 2020, in downtown Denver. (David Zalubowski\/Associated Press file)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold has asked a judge to throw out a lawsuit filed by six Republican-elected officials seeking to launch a third-party \u201caudit\u201d of the 2020 election, part of a broader effort to spread baseless conspiracy theories about widespread voter fraud and seize control of state elections.<\/p>\n

\"Hanks\"
Hanks<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Griswold\u2019s response, submitted on Monday, moves to dismiss all three claims for relief made by the lawsuit against her, which was filed last month<\/a> by a group of GOP officials led by state Rep. Ron Hanks, a Penrose lawmaker and 2022 candidate for U.S. Senate.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy office is requesting the judge dismiss this baseless lawsuit,\u201d Griswold said in a statement. \u201cThe plaintiffs\u2019 allegations are patently false, and their legal justifications without merit. Nationwide, bad actors are abusing the judicial process to spread disinformation, undermine confidence in elections and suppress the right to vote. It is extremely concerning to see elected officials here in Colorado spread conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hanks\u2019 lawsuit raises a series of objections to the secretary of state\u2019s election procedures, including Griswold\u2019s adoption of emergency rules<\/a> prohibiting what she called \u201csham election audits\u201d like the one that took place earlier this year in Arizona<\/a>. That effort, conducted by Florida-based firm Cyber Ninjas at the request of GOP lawmakers, has been widely criticized as undermining confidence in the state\u2019s election system while uncovering no credible evidence of fraud<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Colorado law already requires counties to conduct bipartisan risk-limiting audits<\/a>, which are designed to provide a statistically high degree of confidence in election results.<\/p>\n

Two Republican county clerks, Merlin Klotz of Douglas County and Dallas Schroeder of Elbert County, have joined Hanks as plaintiffs in the lawsuit<\/a>, along with two Rio Blanco County commissioners, Gary Moyer and Jeff Rector, and Park County Commissioner Amy Mitchell.<\/p>\n

Hanks, a first-term lawmaker who announced his candidacy for the Senate seat held by Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet in October, has become one of the state\u2019s most prominent boosters of debunked conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. He was present at a rally in support of former President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, and admitted<\/a> to crossing police lines during the assault by pro-Trump rioters on the U.S. Capitol.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, Hanks spoke at a \u201cCitizen\u2019s Forum\u201d<\/a> hosted by an election-denial group in Colorado Springs, at which he laid out a six-point plan for a total overhaul of election procedures in Colorado, beginning with \u201clocal-controlled, clean voter rolls\u201d and the abolition of the mail ballot system.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are in a moment now where we are going to have to be aggressive,\u201d he told the audience, according to audio of the event obtained by Newsline.<\/p>\n

Griswold\u2019s office said that in addition to failing to show that the new audit rules were invalid, other sections of Hanks\u2019 lawsuit rest on false allegations relating to election record-keeping and the accreditation of voting systems.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs secretary of state, it is my duty to defend the rights of every Colorado voter \u2013 Republican, Democrat and unaffiliated, alike \u2013 and I will continue to do so,\u201d Griswold said.<\/p>\n

To read more stories from Colorado Newsline, visit www.coloradonewsline.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Republican-elected officials are asking for an \u2018audit\u2019 of 2020 results<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39916,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,1509],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-42955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-state-elections"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42955\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42955"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=42955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}